OWC have just announced the first SSD upgrade for the Retina-powered Apple MacBook Pro, with the new drive available on a single 480GB capacity. The upgraders who purchase before September 30 will receive OWC's Envoy Pro USB 3.0 bus-powered portable enclosure that will house the removed SSD, and use it as an external drive at no extra cost.

OWC's drive is dubbed the Mercury Aura drive, and is user-installable. The Mercury Aura drive is capable of 500MB/sec, compared to the stock Apple drive of 461MB/sec. The Mercury-branded SSD is also capable of block management and wear leveling technologies, which limits the reduction in speed common in SSD drives over long-term use.

The Mercury Aura 480GB sell for $580 and is available right now.